Posted Fri Dec 01 21:12:57 EAT 2017

The land of the chimps

A meeting of the elders - the chimps of Gombe National Park - from the Kasakela group. PHOTO | RUPI MANGAT

In Summary

It was at Gombe that Jane Goodall, the ape researcher of renown, documented chimpanzees fashioning grass stalks as tools to extract termites from termite mounds.

In 1947, a chimpanzee was seen just a mile away from Kigoma. Now it’s all land settled by a fast-increasing population of people clearing land for settlement.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

It is heading to dawn as we make our way to the secluded bay on Lake Tanganyika in Kigoma to take a motorboat to Gombe National Park. It’s the only way to get there.

Tanganyika is a beautiful, freshwater lake that the outside world knew nothing of until the mid-19th century. We sail past fishers and cargo boats to and from Burundi and DRC. Villages that double up as fishers’ landing sites and refugee homes for the Congolese and Burundians straddle the lakeshore.

A red sun rises and three hours later, we see the first signpost to Gombe National Park on a beautiful sand beach framed by soft blue waters, with troops of baboons drinking from the lake. “The chimpanzees never come to the beach,” says Dr Anthony Collins who has been there for 30 years studying the baboons.

Stepping ashore at the research centre, Iddi Kaluse, the guide, greets us. The big question is, where are the famous Kasakela chimpanzees? There’s a long wait during the two-way conversation between the chimpanzee trackers and the guide on their walkie-talkies.

At this point, the chimpanzees are midway in the hills. Scanning the peaks, my heart pounds; if they go higher, it’s going to be a tough climb. But the chimpanzees are in our favour and we hear them before we see them, their shrieks and calls echoing in the forest-full of peaks and vales. And then we’re only a few feet away from them.

Chimpanzee kids play and wrestle. A two-week-old baby suckles her mother’s breast. A loner swings in the trees. Abruptly, Sheldon the alpha-male ambles down the forest path passing inches away from us, followed by the rest of the family. Kalusi points to a big male pounding his chest and whispers. “That’s Fudge showing off. It’s like he’s saying, ‘I’m strong’.”